Perfect.
“Lark,” I murmur, breaking just enough to breathe. My forehead rests against hers. Our noses brush. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Occupational hazard,” she whispers. “You knew what you were signing up for when you let me in the car.”
I tug her closer by the waist. “That was blackmail,” I remind her.
“And you still said yes,” she says, eyes bright.
“Not my smartest move.”
“Pretty sure it was,” she counters.
She kisses me again before I can respond, quicker this time, playful. I chase it, catching her bottom lip between mine, coaxing another soft sound from her.
My hand slides up her side, feeling the curve of her ribs, the steady thud of her heartbeat under my palm. She’s thin but strong, all lean muscle and stubborn resolve.
“Say something awful,” she breathes between kisses.
I blink. “What?”
“Something terrible and romantic so my brain can’t handle it.”
I huff out a laugh that bumps our mouths.
“You’re impossible,” I say.
“Knight.”
I look at her.
There’s something vulnerable that makes my chest ache.
I could deflect.
I could joke.
I don’t.
Instead, I press my mouth to the corner of hers, then along her jaw, up to her temple, breathing her in. “You feel like… home,” I murmur, the words surprising even me with their bluntness. “Which is really inconvenient, considering we’re in a cabin theinternet forgot about with a crime syndicate trying to murder us.”
Her breath catches. She pulls back just enough to see my face clearly. Her eyes shine, and a slow, stunned smile spreads across her mouth. “Knight Hayes,” she whispers, “that might be the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Your bar is low,” I say weakly.
“No, my standards are just calibrated for emotionally reluctant vigilantes,” she says. “And you, sir, are murdering it.”
“Murdering what?”
“My remaining emotional defenses.” She leans in to kiss me again, slow and lingering.
I sink into it, letting the outside world blur at the edges.
There’s still a bounty.
There are still people out there who’d see us both dead for sport.
Dean and Arrow and the others are still working angles we can’t see.
